Drop Night: The Final Step to Becoming an Air Force Pilot
Introduction to Drop Night
This is drop night. A long-anticipated event, where soon-to-be Air Force Flight School graduates find out what aircraft they will fly. But before they get there, yeah, they have to start here at Laughlin Air Force Base in Del Rio, Texas, just 9 miles north of the US-Mexico border, newly commissioned officers begin a year-long journey to earn their wings.
Purpose of Undergraduate Pilot Training
The purpose of undergraduate pilot training is to give students experience in an aircraft and the military aviation world. So, usually they come in with a little bit of flight experience in the civilian world, and then we teach them what that’s like to do that as a military aviator.
Tackling the Pilot Shortage
Accelerated Pilot Training
The Air Force has grappled with a pilot shortage for the last few years. In response, it’s working to streamline training to get new pilots into the cockpit faster without sacrificing standards. After graduating T6s, within a year, they’ll be mission-ready and could see combat in less than 18 months.
Laughlin AFB: The Training Hub
History and Importance
Pilots have trained at Laughlin for over 70 years, beginning in World War II when it was a training site for bomber crews. Today, it’s home to the 47th Flying Training Wing, and it trains more Air Force pilots than any other base.
Selection Criteria
It’s pretty competitive, so it all starts, uh, either in OTS, ROC, or any other commissioning source that they may come through there. They have to compete to be in the top half of their graduating class. Then they’ll get picked to become a pilot. To be selected, applicants must hold a 4-year college degree, be commissioned as an officer, and pass a series of academic and flight aptitude tests.
Diverse Backgrounds, One Goal
My college degree was in communication studies. I have a hospitality degree from the University of Central Florida. I know it doesn’t translate, but during that time, I gathered about 2,000 hours of flight instruction time. I got my private pilot’s license in high school, and then I went to the Air Force Academy and did a couple of airmanship things there, and then in general, I’ve been exposed to aviation pretty much my whole life. It’s been a long time. I’m 27 years old now and I’ve been told no many times. Uh, I’ve applied several times to get into this program.
T6 Texan II: The Starting Point
Basics of Military Flying
All students begin training on the T6 Texan 2, a single-engine turboprop plane designed to teach the basics of military flying.
Classroom and Simulator Training
But only top performers are selected to continue training in the T38 Talon. This twin-engine supersonic jet prepares pilots for the fighter jets they may fly in the operational air force. These are all the things that come on when we turn on the avionics master switch, which is powered by the generator bus. Before they enter an aircraft cockpit, students spend weeks in the classroom learning its layout, how to read flight instruments, and how weather systems will affect everything they do in the air.
Academic Foundation
So we’re going to provide the academic foundation, the theory that we think is essential for all high-performance flying that we do here, so that when they reach the simulator phase of training, they can practice that. Then it’ll make a lot more sense by the time they get into the aircraft itself.
Simulators Phases
You have to learn about the entire aircraft, how to fly it, where to fly it, and the procedures that follow that. It’s a fire hose, so we’re getting a lot of information all at once. The pacing is tough. However, it’s manageable, and we’ve been selected for a reason. So, we’re here to work hard, study hard, and move on to our bases. So, that’s where you’re pointed. That’s where you’re going. Students spend about 100 hours in the academic phase of training before moving to the next phase and logging 50 to 60 hours across three types of simulators to develop skills in cockpit procedures, emergency scenarios, and instrument flying.
- Unit Training Device (UTD): A basic cockpit with no visual outside references.
- Instrument Flight Trainers: In a dark container with a simple video screen.
- Operational Flight Training: About 120 degrees of visuals for aerobatics, emergency procedures.
Instructor Pilot Mentorship
Each student is paired with an instructor pilot, or IP, who evaluates their performance through each phase of training. So, flying the Sims, there are certain moments where it feels genuine. Your spatial orientation, how far you’re off the ground, and emergency procedures. I had that song last night, and it picks up tempo, and it’s like, oh, wow, this is happening.
Enhanced Training through Technology
I was here previously as an instructor from about 2014 to 2018, and it took students about 20 rides to solo. And now, utilizing the immersive training devices, they solo in about half the time. So it’s accelerated their development and their growth, and ultimately we see a better product from T6’s based on that technology. It’s a one-to-one recreation of what is outside here at Laughlin. So we can practice on the simulators for hours on end, see what our visual references are, and then the first day we step in the plane, we can point out everything that we’re familiar with up to that point.
Overcoming Training Challenges
Pilot Production Struggles
While simulators have sped up training, they’re just one part of a larger strategy. The Air Force has struggled for the past 8 years to meet its annual goal of producing 1,500 new pilots. There are multiple reasons why. There’s always some event that happens, whether it’s OBOG’s event or the T6. Laughlin had a hail event here several years ago that destroyed basically every T1. They had to be rebuilt.
Hardworking Instructor Pilots
At Laughlin, our IPs are working very hard. You know, typically flying two sorties per day to make sure that we can produce pilots to fill the cockpit that America needs to defend our national security.
Spatial Disorientation Training
One of the most dangerous challenges pilots face is spatial disorientation. A condition where the body’s senses can no longer accurately determine the aircraft’s position, altitude, or motion. So, if we’re flying in formation through the weather, you’re just staring at your flight lead’s wing. You’re not looking at any instruments. They are looking at their instruments, and you’re just staring at their plane. And that can become quite disorienting.
- Simulators Used: Spatial disorientation simulator and Baron chair.
- Lesson: Your senses can lie, but your instruments won’t.
Survival and Equipment Training
We teach them local area survival. And we cover emergency parachute training. Not comfy. Let’s help you understand. All right. So, what do we do? Need to thumbs downers up higher. There you go. Now pulling. But we go through a practical application of what’s taught in the class because we’re not going to have the opportunity to use this in the real world until it is a life-or-death situation.
- Frequency: Every 36 months refresher.
- Gear Fitting: Helmet, harness, mask, gait, and oxygen checks every 120 days.
Flying the T6: Hands-On Begins
Aircraft Details
Laughlin Air Force Base has a fleet of over 160 aircraft, 103 T6s and 59 T38s, valued at more than $800 million, requiring a $1.6 billion maintenance budget. And with three runways, it’s one of the Air Force’s busiest airfields.
Student Perspective
Approximately 450 student pilots are being trained at any given time. And their hands-on training begins in the T6. Man, I love the T6. She’s kind of all-purpose, all-weather. She can go wherever you want. She’s not the fastest, nor can she hold the most gas, but she goes upside down. She rolls. She pulls. You get all of the training that you would need in the T6 to go off into any other aircraft, whether that be a fighter aircraft, a bomber, a tanker, or a heavy cargo plane.
Flight Progression Phases
Once in the T6, students begin applying the fundamentals from the classroom and the simulators. This phase of training is broken into three progressive stages.
- Transition: High G and speed maneuvers
- Navigation: Methodical and slow maneuvers
- Formation: Close coordination and maneuvering
Flight Day Preparation
Training objectives today will be zero missed ground checklist items/ callouts. Every flight starts with a mission brief. Maintain minus 0 plus 100 ft on the localizer.
Risk Management & Briefing
Students will come to the briefing. They’ve studied before. We’ll cover all the basics of the flight. So, going through the weather, operational risk management, we’ll have a brief overview of the plan, uh, that we’ll run through so that everybody’s on the same page, and that’s standardized between all briefs.
Risk Assessment
Students also visit the step desk. We write down everything that might be a risk factor for our flight. So, if we didn’t sleep well, if we’re not feeling hydrated, if we have personal things going on at home, maybe, and it’s just to take a second to look at it, add up the points, be like, “Hey, are we safe to be flying? Does this make sense?”
Real Flights and IFR Training
Having a blast so far. Our plan was just to go up, do some mow work, basic aerobics, get the blood flowing, get the body pumping, and then we’re going to head back and recover via localizer. Localizer is an instrument approach you’ll do, and we typically will practice in VFR, which is visual flight rules, and IFR, which is instrument flight rules.
Debriefing Process
The reason we do that is to practice when the weather is terrible and you can’t see the runway. That will give you the lateral course you need to get you down to the runway. Once you come back and start debriefing, that’s when you have the time to understand how I could do this better. The debrief is the most critical part of learning. We’ll discuss whether we have any safety concerns about flights, right? So, anything where that could have been dangerous, we could have uh gotten in an unsafe situation or maybe something uh not legal in the air, right? So, we’ll talk about that, and then we’ll go through, like, hey, did we meet the objectives that we set today?
Graduation and Wings Ceremony
Student pilots that are getting ready to be winged pilots, do not forget how vital your manganese brothers and sisters are, cuz without them, you’re not doing the mission. So, today was kind of the start of our graduation experience, where we get our wings. The tradition was to get someone who gives you the wings that meant something to you and got you here. And so, today, maintenance gave them to us. It’s just kind of a symbolic thing to show that they were the ones who supported us getting the graduation today.
Future Assignments & Fighter Track
Going to Altus Air Force Base in Oklahoma. So, I’ll train with the C17 squadron out there. After this, I’m going to Little Rock, Arkansas, for 6 months to learn how to fly the C-130H. And after that, I’m going to Cheyenne, Wyoming, to fly for the Wyoming Air National Guard. Students selected for the fighter track remain at Laughlin for 4 to 6 months.
T38 Talon Track
I’m going to fly the T38, which is the next phase of training here. So, I will stick around Laughlin for a little bit. The students we get for 38s are typically towards the top of their T6 class. So, higher performers and T6s and people who want to fly something fast and pointy.
Final Rankings and Assignments
At the end of the program, their scores go into what’s called a mass, and they’re ranked from number one to the last person, and there are only a few slots for both T38s and the major weapon systems, and the top students get their top choices.
T38 Training Environment
While T38 training follows the same structure as T6, the pace is faster, the demands are greater, and the margin for error is smaller. T38, you have to be on top of your game. There are a lot of things that you have to be constantly thinking about and making decisions on.
Formation Flying in T38s
Formation flying simulates the stress and the fear of a deployed location, right? We don’t have bombs coming at us, but we have to, in some way, instill the pressure from the outside world. And I think formation is a great way to start.
Conclusion
These newly pinned pilots will head to their next base to begin aircraft-specific training. Some will fly tankers, others fighters, bombers, or cargo planes, but they’ll all leave Laughlin with the same title:
United States Air Force Pilot
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